


Seeing things

by M_Moonshade



Category: Urban Dragon
Genre: Gen, Homelessness, Modern Era, dragon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 05:58:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1929306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Moonshade/pseuds/M_Moonshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rosario's heard fairy tales about trolls living under bridges, but those aren't real.</p><p>Dragons aren't real, either.</p><p>Apparently nobody told that to the giant scaly snakey-thing sleeping under the on-ramp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeing things

**Author's Note:**

> Minty-kisses-and-music prompted me: "Would something about how your OCs (if any) met?"
> 
> The thing is, I generally avoid making OCs for fanwork, aside from very minor background characters. So instead I wound up writing out the first meeting between the two protagonists of a WIP of mine. 
> 
> It works as a general short story-- nothing in this piece depends on any outside knowledge of the characters or the situation.

Rosario looked around, trying to see if anybody was looking this way. To see if anybody could possibly see this. But no, most rational people went over bridges— they didn’t wade around underneath them. This particular spot was probably completely invisible from anywhere but right own here at water level.

Which meant she couldn’t pull a _Beautiful Mind_  and see if anybody else could see the giant snake-lizard-thing wrapped around the bridge’s support beam.

She tried to think back. Nothing she’d eaten today had tasted particularly funny. She’d actually scraped together enough donations that she didn’t have to go dumpster diving, so it wasn’t like she’d eaten something tainted. It wasn’t like the guy at McDonalds to put weird shit in her food (well, weirder than what was on the regular menu, anyway), and she hadn’t dosed on anything in the past week, so she wasn’t tripping.

A back-trip, maybe? Or maybe she was sick? Maybe something in her brain just snapped and decided that from now on she’d see shit?

That thought scared the hell out of her.

Maybe it was something else. An art installation from the university or something. Maybe everybody else didn’t notice it because it was old news. It had been a while since she’d been on this side of town, after all.

So she stumbled and fumbled her way down the weedy riverbank, closer to the foul-smelling water.

It hadn’t moved. It was still right there: a giant-ass dragon, as big around as her waist, with antlers like a deer and whiskers like a catfish and blue scales that looked more like bad spray paint than the shiny snake scales you saw in pictures. 

Yeah, it was probably an art project.

She reached out, just to prove it to herself. It was just paper mache and plastic. It was just fiberglass and aluminum. It was—

It moved.

"Holy shit!" she screeched, falling back onto her ass. She would have crabwalked away, but her hands sank into the muck and left her trapped.

The dragon opened one eye— the size of her closed fist, as brown as her own eyes, but slitted like a cat’s. Its nostrils flared as it took a deep breath.

"Please don’t eat me," she whispered.

The dragon flared its nostrils again in an indignant huff, and shut its eyes. 

Maybe Rosario did have something up in her head, because a sane, rational person would have turned around and run for it right there. A sane, rational person maybe would have decided that pissing themselves once was enough. A sane, rational person wouldn’t have climbed to her knees and reached out again to touch the dragon.

Its scales were as big as her hand, and smooth, and cool to the touch. 

It opened its eyes again and regarded her, looking half-bored, half-tired. 

And then it opened its mouth and flicked out a tongue, wrapping the long, forked thing around her wrist. 

"Shit shit shit, please don’t eat me!" she yelped again.

It flicked an ear back and withdrew its tongue, looking annoyed, but butted at her hand with its massive nose.

"You want me to… pet you?" 

What the hell was she thinking? It was a giant freakin’ lizard, not a cat. But when she stroked her hand across its muzzle, it leaned into the touch. And then, with a lurch of movement, it unwrapped one could of its body from around the pillar and laid its head in her lap. 

"That— that can’t be very comfortable," she told the dragon, and it flicked an ear toward her. "I mean— I’m sorry it smells like piss, but can you fuckin’ blame me? Look at you!" But she started scratching behind the dragon’s ear, and it seemed to like that. 

They sat there for a long time before the wind changed. Rosario didn’t notice it so much as she noticed the dragon suddenly raising its head and sniffing the air. It unwound itself from the pillar and wrapped itself in loose coils around her body. Not enough to be smothering, but definitely freaky. Again it laid its head in her lap, and Rosario continued petting it.

"Nice dragon," she whispered. "Good dragon. Not-hungry dragon." 

Yes, it was freaky as hell. Yes, she still questioned her sanity.

But when her legs fell asleep, she shifted her weight, and the dragon shifted effortlessly around her. Her warmth was radiated back at her from the protective cocoon of the dragon’s body. And as big and scary as it was, it felt… almost like a guard dog. Against all reason, she felt… safe.

For the first time in years, she slept through the night. 


End file.
